Chapter 173: Dokai (2)

Over three meters tall.

The upper part of his torso still retained some semblance of human form, but the skin was stretched and split. The muscles bulged in deformed ways, with veins of dark purple-black crawling beneath the skin like venomous snakes coiling around a body that had not yet truly died.

But the most terrifying part wasn’t his body.

It was his limbs.

Dokai’s two arms and two legs had completely transformed into a soul-form. There was no longer any bone, no flesh, no fixed shape. They were a hybrid mass of countless grayish-black soul tentacles, woven together into the form of arms and legs.

Within each tentacle were faded faces, stretched out, distorted. Some faces had their mouths open, screaming in silence. Some had their eyes wide, weeping. Some laughed madly as if reveling in their own pain.

Each time Dokai moved, those faces collided with each other, jostling, being stretched and torn apart into gray smoke. But very quickly afterward, new faces would grow back.

His mouth was also no longer a human mouth.

It split into three pieces.

One line tore up to his ears. Two other lines tore down beneath his chin, making his face look like a flower of flesh in bloom. Inside were layers of sharp fangs growing in chaotic, irregular ways. Some teeth even twitched as if alive, biting against each other, emitting small but dense clicking sounds.

From deep within his throat, countless soul tentacles slithered out. They were like octopus tendrils, slimy, grayish-black, but at the tip of each tentacle was a small mouth or half a human face with eyes open, looking outward.

Disgusting.

Insane.

Deformed to the point that just one look made one doubt whether this thing had ever truly been human.

Sunako, plastered against the wall, was ghostly pale. She opened her mouth, wanting to scream, but this time her throat seemed to be choked by something. A while later, she trembled as she said: “That… that thing… is human?”

No one answered.

Even Thunder Dragon lowered its body, its purple-black eyes staring intently at Dokai, a very low growl emitting from its throat.

Krittttt…

This wasn’t its everyday contempt.

It was wariness.

Extreme wariness.

Inside the chat channel, chaos erupted in the blink of an eye.

[Room 117 – Oran: What is that thing?! Is that a Survivor? Or a new Boss?]

[Room 804 – Sana: I just saw human faces on its arms… I’m not seeing things, am I?]

[Room 221 – Kuro: No, you’re not seeing things. Its limbs aren’t ordinary matter. They’re souls. A lot of souls.]

[Room 606 – Garland: I’m a level 6 Survivor, but I’ve never seen this kind of monster. It’s not like an ordinary Wraith.]

[Room 19 – Mikan: Does anyone know who that is? Why did it appear there?]

[Room 330 – Owl: I want a tissue sample of it. No, if I could get a piece of soul tentacle, that would be even better.]

[Room 712 – Bardo: Are you insane? Just one look at that thing tells you you’d die just from touching it.]

[Room 330 – Owl: That’s exactly why it has research value.]

[Room 905 – Hellen: Research my ass! It just smashed through the stairwell door and burst out! What if it comes to our floor?!]

[Room 606 – Garland: Stay calm. Its target is the Ice Wolf Boss. It seems to want to steal the reward.]

[Room 411 – Vera: Steal the Boss right in front of room 2705? Isn’t it afraid of Rover?]

[Room 606 – Garland: Perhaps it no longer knows fear.]

Many Survivors were afraid, but quite a few were also excited. For those who had survived long enough in the Endless Game, monsters didn’t only represent danger. They also represented resources, materials, abilities, evolution, and secrets that could allow a Survivor to surpass others by far.

But whether they were afraid or curious, there was one thing they all had in common.

No one knew who Dokai was.

No one knew he had once been Millan’s older brother.

No one knew how he had been hybridized with a Wraith.

No one knew that the thing standing in the middle of the corridor at this moment was the result of a failed experiment, a human eaten away by souls, or some kind of deformed existence reluctantly stitched together by some obsessive will.

Except for Morie.

In room 2705, Morie’s gaze was chillingly cold. She stared intently at the screen, her hands resting on the armrests of her chair, her eyes becoming even sharper.

When she had agreed to become Rover’s Tenant, she had once looked into the people around him.

Dokai.

Millan.

These two names were not unfamiliar to her.

It was just that even Morie hadn’t thought Dokai would transform into this form.

Dokai right now did not resemble someone with complete consciousness. He didn’t speak, didn’t make judgments like a human, nor did he display obvious desires like ordinary monsters.

He merely existed.

In a distorted way.

In a painful way.

In an aberrant way.

If not for the emotional bond between him and Millan, if not for the obsession of brotherhood that still lingered, holding him together, perhaps this thing would have long since transformed into a chaotic mass of resentful souls, only knowing how to swallow everything around it.

In other words, Dokai wasn’t truly acting on his own.

He was being controlled.

Or at the very least, being guided by Millan’s will through the lingering bond between the two of them.

“You know him?” Elith asked.

“Mm.” Morie replied very briefly: “Dokai. Millan’s older brother. Once hybridized with a Wraith.”

Elith frowned.

“Which is why the spider silk has no effect?”

“Not entirely without effect.” Morie looked at the spider net that had just blocked Dokai’s punch, calmly saying: “His physical body can still be affected by the silk. But his limbs have transformed into a soul-form. Material silk cannot lock that part down.”

Elith said in a low voice: “So how do we fight?”

The azure light around Morie gradually grew more intense.

“I’ll fight.”

Elith turned her head to look at her.

Morie didn’t look back.

Her jade-green eyes still rested on Dokai. In her gaze, there was no fear, only a cold alertness like a thin blade.

“Your silk can’t touch his soul, but my ability is different.”

She took a deep breath.

The azure light around her erupted once again.

[Holy Maiden of the Titan Race]

Activated.

The air in the room suddenly grew heavy.

Morie sat on the chair, her small body almost swallowed by the azure light. Her hair fluttered gently in an invisible current of air. Her pale skin reflected the cold light like jade, but her eyes were so bright that others didn’t dare to look at them directly.

This time, the pressure emanating from her was even heavier than before.

Not just one hand.

But two hands.

Out in the corridor, Psionic energy began to coalesce on both sides of Dokai. The air distorted. Each line of azure light interwove with each other, twisting into bone, compressing into sinew, finally transforming into two massive hands, transparent as molten azure glass.

One hand appeared to Dokai’s left.

One hand appeared to his right.

Each hand was larger than half of his body. Each finger long and powerful, with energy veins running along the surface like the blood vessels of an ancient Titan that had just awakened.

Dokai turned his head.

His blood-red eyes looked toward the two Psionic hands. Within his three-piece mouth, countless tentacles writhed even more violently, but he still didn’t make any sound.

Only action.

Only instinct.

Only the invisible command pulling him toward the dying prey.

BANG!

Both Psionic hands slammed down at the same time.

The ground exploded. Ice fragments, ice Goblin corpses, frozen spider silk, and pieces of metal from the stairwell door flew chaotically in all directions.

But Dokai had vanished from his previous position.

Not by teleporting.

But by his body suddenly bending at an angle unlike any creature with bones. His material torso bent backward, almost snapping in two. His soul-form limbs stretched out, slithering across the ground like massive snakes, helping him slip through the gap between the two Psionic hands.

Boom!

A Titan hand swept horizontally.

Dokai bounced off the wall, his four soul-form limbs latching onto the icy surface like spider claws, then shooting back toward the Ice Wolf General.

His target was still very clear.

The Boss.

The reward.

Or more precisely, the thing that Millan wanted him to steal.

The Ice Wolf General had been bound tightly in mid-air by the spider silk and the Psionic hand from before, her face growing increasingly pale. The poison from the [Frenzied Blood Spike Door] was still corroding her life. The cold aura within her body was also being cut off. She couldn’t self-destruct, couldn’t fully counterattack.

She watched Dokai charging toward her.

In her ice-cold azure blue eyes, for the first time, a flash of fury appeared.

For a general, dying in battle could be accepted. Being killed by another could also be accepted. But to have a deformed monster come charging in to steal the reward like a piece of meat off the table, that was an insult.

“Grh…”

She gritted her teeth, the remaining cold aura around her body erupting, trying to sever the spider silk.

But Elith didn’t give her the chance.

“You’d best stay quiet.”

Elith coldly said.

The spider silk continued to tighten.

At the same time, Morie raised her right hand. The two Titan hands changed direction. One hand grasped down toward Dokai from above, while the other hand swept horizontally from below, blocking his entire path of advance.

Dokai opened his mouth.

There was no roar.

But the tentacles inside his mouth simultaneously extended out, trembling violently. His right soul-form arm stretched out, countless tentacles twisted together into a massive fist, slamming straight into the descending Psionic hand.

BOOM!!!!

This time, he didn’t pass through.

Psionics weren’t spider silk.

It could touch souls.

Dokai’s soul fist collided with the Titan hand, creating an explosion of azure and grayish-black in the middle of the corridor. The faces on his arm simultaneously screamed in silence. Some of the tentacles were crushed, transforming into gray smoke before vanishing.

But Morie’s Psionic hand also trembled violently. The energy veins on the palm developed countless small cracks.

Inside the room, Morie’s face went ghostly pale.

A stream of blood flowed from the corner of her mouth.

Elith immediately looked at her.

“Morie!”

“It’s fine.”

Morie wiped the blood with the back of her hand, her gaze still not leaving the screen.

“Continue.”

Dokai was knocked off his path of advance. His massive body slammed into the wall.

BANG!

The wall wasn’t destroyed, but the layer of ice covering it immediately exploded into white dust.

He fell to the ground, then almost immediately got back up.

Not at all like a wounded creature.

More like a mass of resentful thoughts forced into a humanoid shape.

Morie knew clearly that relying solely on the two Titan hands wasn’t enough to finish him off. So she didn’t intend to do so.

“Thunder Dragon.”

Her voice rang out within the room.

Out in the corridor, Thunder Dragon, which had been keeping its body lowered, immediately raised its head.

Krit!

Its purple-black eyes lit up.

Morie coldly said: “Strike him.”

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